02.06.08
David Park: The Truth Commissioner
Who’d be a publisher? Having to shout equally loud about all the books you publish, it becomes impossible for browsers to tell the good from the bad. Maybe there should be a key - a winking eye on the spine, say - to tell us what’s not really worth bothering with. The thought occurred as I was reading David Park’s new novel The Truth Commissioner, a book worthy of the highest praise; and yet I know I would never have heard of it, let alone bought it, if I hadn’t noticed that the book launch was taking place in my home city of Belfast, Park being a fellow Northern Irishman - and that in optimistic preparation, my local Waterstone’s had a couple of hundred copies stacked high everywhere I looked. I don’t know whether this is cheering, because I did discover it, or depressing, because of all the others I haven’t.
I don’t know whether The Truth Commissioner is cheering or depressing either: it’s solemn of outlook all right, but such a rare pleasure to read that it sent shivers of delight right up through me from the pages. It takes a situation ripe with emotional possibilities and does it every justice.
The setting is Northern Ireland, home of long memories and extended news bulletins, where at present there is momentum for a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to help draw a line under decades of conflict. Where other writers might feel that the move from violence to politics robs the subject of power, Park’s stroke of brilliance is to recognise that it is these moments of change - where attention has moved on but the story is not yet over - which offer the most dramatic potential, and in the book the Commission has been established. Some people want to forgive and forget, perhaps because their status now is one they don’t want to lose; others want to remember and still demand justice. Overlooking them all are the British and Irish politicians who most of all want to feel the hand of history on their shoulder, and will permit principles to erode in order to keep the process on track.
The first two-thirds of the book moves unhurriedly, with 60-page portraits of four men: Henry Stanfield, the Truth Commissioner; Francis Gilroy, former IRA man and now Minister in the Northern Ireland Assembly; James Fenton, retired detective who will be able to provide some unwelcome facts to the Commission; and Danny, a young Irishman in America who is about to make a commitment to his girlfriend. Where these scenes excel is in filling in the truth of the men: Stanfield’s adulterous past, estranged daughter and weakness for younger women; Gilroy’s embarrassment at his lack of cultural knowledge which leads him to surreptitiously read Philip Larkin poems, and his new understanding of the fear of sudden murder which he himself once instilled in others; Fenton’s need to drive across Europe “where he’s unknown and no more visible than a grain of sand on the world’s shore” to atone for his past; Danny’s mistaken belief that his only worries are for the future. Stanfield in particular is a fascinating character, a perfect example of the type of person who comes to hate their old homeland after being away - Belfast is a place of “self-consoling mythology” - and who has some unwelcome observations to make about the political process:
Now the world doesn’t care any more because there are bigger wars and better terrors and all that remains is this final tidying up … He has even met a few individuals already who clearly have become emotionally dependent on their grief, who have jerry-built a kind of lop-sided, self-pitying life out of it and are unwilling to risk having even that taken from them, in exchange for their day in the sun.
These sections are written with beautiful poise and elegance, and although the sinuous style seemed a little similar from character to character, it can only be to Park’s credit that I found myself each time unwilling to leave the man whose life had been laid out before me, and keen to hear more of his story. The characters are fully fleshed, struggling to maintain their sense of self even as they understand that their place is ultimately in someone else’s story, with their “inability to resist or stop the flow.”
Although urgently political in background, the stories at the heart of The Truth Commissioner are human ones, stories of exertion of and submission to power, and of “the curse of memory.” In the last third the pace picks up and the story becomes almost a thriller - well, I was pretty thrilled anyway - without sacrificing its grounded sincerity. All this is surrounded by a linked introduction and coda which opens the book on a note of high drama and ends it with something approaching serenity.
Truth is a relative concept, and personal, and perhaps I am swayed by my knowledge of the places and processes described in the book, like an excited local pointing out his street on a TV drama. For me, nonetheless, the truth is that David Park has written what looks like the first essential novel of 2008.
Mark said,
Wednesday, 6 February 2008 at 4:08 pm
Both the scary bird and the “As Read on Radio 4″ sticker are putting me off this one, John!
John Self said,
Wednesday, 6 February 2008 at 4:49 pm
Haha yes, I couldn’t find an image of the cover online without the sticker and was too lazy to scan in my own (which did have the same sticker but which I swiftly removed!). It was A Book at Bedtime last week, apparently. The bird is an odd choice, isn’t it, presumably intended to look at the same time peaceful and predatory, but to me it makes the book look a bit lit-fic-by-numbers. The US cover is more John le Carré, a man in an illuminated window surrounded by darkness: starker and probably more fitting.
Isabel said,
Wednesday, 6 February 2008 at 5:51 pm
Is this book set in the near future?
Sounds very interesting. I have to look for it now.
Congrats on your blog versary!
John Self said,
Wednesday, 6 February 2008 at 6:04 pm
Thanks Isabel!
I think the book could be seen as being either in the near future or an alternate present. Certainly the details of Belfast are perfectly contemporary.
Stewart said,
Wednesday, 6 February 2008 at 9:49 pm
There’s one on the Book Depository: here.
John Self said,
Wednesday, 6 February 2008 at 9:57 pm
Thanks Stewart. (It has a different quote on the cover for some reason.) Of course I’ll have to leave the current one up now, or else Mark’s original comment will be confusing…
Equiano said,
Thursday, 7 February 2008 at 10:49 am
This sounds fascinating - one for my TBR pile. I’m not sure how you feel about non-fiction, but since you found THE TRUTH COMMISSIONER so compelling, I thought I’d recommend to you COUNTRY OF MY SKULL by Antjie Krog. A superb book dealing with South Africa’s TRC from her perspective as journalist covering it, and individual South African feeling the effects. Each chapter has a different approach, so it is relatively easy to read it in manageable chunks. South African journalists who covered the TRC day in and day out all began to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorders…
John Self said,
Thursday, 7 February 2008 at 3:23 pm
Thanks Equiano - in fact you’re the second person to recommend Country of My Skull to me (hello Sam, if you’re reading this!) so I will add it to my wishlist. You mention journalists at the South African TRC suffering PTSD - I hope it is not spoilerish to say that in The Truth Commissioner, hearing all the details of past horrors has a similar effect on Henry Stanfield, and all sorts of other effects on the other men involved…
Declan Burke said,
Sunday, 10 February 2008 at 1:51 pm
John - Re: the ’scary bird’ on the cover - an amalgam of the ‘hawks and doves’ approach that characterised the IRA’s / Sinn Fein’s approach to the Peace Process? Cheers, Dec
John Self said,
Sunday, 10 February 2008 at 2:09 pm
Yes that makes sense Dec, thanks!
By the way for anyone who’s interested in this book, I’m planning to attend the launch on Tuesday and will report back here on anything interesting.
Stewart said,
Sunday, 10 February 2008 at 2:36 pm
Launch? It’s been on sale in Glasgow’s Borders for over a week.
John Self said,
Sunday, 10 February 2008 at 4:27 pm
Yes, publication date was 4 Feb 08, and I think I picked mine up a little before that, but the official launch is on 12 Feb at the Linen Hall Library in Belfast - don’t ask me to explain the arcane ways of publishing…
Alan in Belfast said,
Monday, 11 February 2008 at 11:12 pm
For once we’re in agreement … it’s an excellent novel. I hope to be fashionably late tomorrow night - relying on bmi to land in Belfast at 7pm. I’ll look out for you.
John Self said,
Tuesday, 12 February 2008 at 9:51 am
See you there Alan! Anyone interested in this book should click the link in Alan’s comment above, as his review gives a much more detailed assessment of the relevance of the book to contemporary politics - and vice versa - than mine does.
Alan in Belfast said,
Tuesday, 12 February 2008 at 11:32 pm
Destined to occasionally agree on books, but never meet. bmi scotched my attendance, finally landing after the launch was over!
Cheryl Wonders said,
Wednesday, 13 February 2008 at 12:24 am
I should have looked at your photo before going to the launch…
Your review has me nearly afraid to read the book, in case I’m disappointed!
But it clinches for The Truth Commissioner the place on the top of the pile at my bedside!
John Self said,
Wednesday, 13 February 2008 at 9:22 am
I hope you won’t be disappointed Cheryl - admittedly I read it without any expectations (it was my first Park too) but I think it stands up to scrutiny. Sorry to have missed you both: Alan because he didn’t make it, and Cheryl because I didn’t know you would be there and didn’t know what you look like anyway!
Nice to hear Glenn Patterson mention the swooping starlings over the Albert Bridge which Mrs Self and I were just discussing on the way out of town the other night.
Gavin said,
Wednesday, 13 February 2008 at 11:28 am
I’m 150 pages in and savouring every word. I too was at the launch and thought it went really well. Lovely introduction from Glenn Patterson.
I’m amazed by the novel, but feel a bit nervous about whether it will be widely recognised. Portillo is one of the Booker judges after all…
John Self said,
Wednesday, 13 February 2008 at 11:44 am
Well I thought Portillo might like the whole politics background…
At the launch Mrs Self and I stood talking to one another the whole time (with brief intervals to talk to David Park when he was signing my books), unaware that we were practically surrounded by people I ‘know’!
And Glenn Patterson turns out to be 46! Doesn’t he look well? Saw his 1999 novel The International has been reissued in Waterstone’s the other day. Must pick it up. His first full-length work of non-fiction, Once Upon a Hill will be published by Bloomsbury in September.
John Self said,
Thursday, 8 May 2008 at 10:22 pm
David Park will be talking about The Truth Commissioner in Lisburn City Library next week - Thursday 15 May 2008 at 20.00.
This is the second of a series of events run as part of the library’s Big Big Reading Group.
Email lisburncitylibrary@ni-libraries.net to book a seat.